David Sessions

China Jails Activist Who Challenged Government on Earthquake Deaths

Posted:

11/23/09

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A veteran Chinese human rights activist who challenged the government over the faulty construction of schools that led to thousands of deaths in a 2008 earthquake has been sentenced the three years in prison, the Washington Post reports. Huang Qi was convicted of possessing secret state documents, and received the maximum penalty allowable under Chinese law.

The sentence comes in the wake of President Obama's much-scrutinized trip to China, where he pressed the communist regime on human rights. Rights activists -- including Huang's wife -- believe the harsh punishment was a carefully timed rejection of Obama's overtures and a sign that the government plans to crack down harder on those who question it. Many were harassed and subjected to tight surveillance during Obama's visit.

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David Sessions

David Sessions is a journalist based in New York who covers politics, religion, and the arts. He is the founding editor of patrolmag.com. ...more

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crossrabbswitch

11:05AM Nov 23rd 2009

And it is a signal to the rest of the world that Obama is, at best, a wimp. The Chinese played Obama like the amateur politician that he is. The bow to the Japanese emperor was more than a gift to all the US adversaries in the world. It was a statement that Obama is not an astute enough politician to even recognize that the US has adversaries in the world. And, it could mean that Obama himself is an adversary of the US. Anyway, the US has been routed from any leadership in the world, thrown off the stage and kicked into the corner. What more can be done to justify a Noble Peace Prize?

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